Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Describe the speaker. What is he like? Is the speaker the same across each section of the poem? If not, where do we see differences among the speakers?
- How are the different sections of the poem tied together to create a cohesive "story"? Or if you would argue for a lack of cohesion, what's the point then?
- You may be thinking, "C'mon, Shmoop. This can't be poetry—a whole ton of it's written in prose. What gives?" Seriously, though, what do you think? How does the poem use sound and other poetic elements even though much of it's written in prose?
- Are we meant to read "Hell" as a real place? What might it mean on a more metaphorical level? What is Rimbaud's Hell and what does it accomplish for the speaker?
- If you were to put this in a modern-day Dante-esque context, who would make a good choice for the Rimbaud-speaker's guide through Hell? Why?
- This poem is generally a downer, but what parts of it indicate a hope for the future?